perhaps of time and key. In the art of painting the law is exemplified in the repetition with variation of certain colors and combinations of lines in different parts of the same picture, so disposed as to lead the eye to some focal point. Every painter knows that any important color in his picture must be echoed, as it were, in different places, for harmony of the whole.

[Illustration 24]

In the drama the repetition of a speech or of an entire scene, but under circumstances which give it a different meaning, is often most effective, as when Gratiano, in the trial scene of The Merchant of Venice taunts Shylock with his own words, "A Daniel come to judgment!" or, as when in one of the later scenes of As You Like It an earlier scene is repeated, but with Rosalind speaking in her proper person and no longer as the boy Ganymede.

These recurrences, these inner consonances, these repetitions with variations are common in architecture also. The channeled triglyphs of a Greek Doric frieze echo the fluted columns below (Illustration 24). The balustrade which crowns a colonnade is a repetition, in some sort, of the colonnade itself. The modillions of a Corinthian cornice are but elaborated and embellished dentils. Each pinnacle of a Gothic cathedral is a little tower with its spire. As Ruskin has pointed out, the great vault of the cathedral nave, together with the pointed roof above it, is repeated in the entrance arch with its gable, and the same two elements appear in every statue-enshrining niche of the doorway. In classic architecture, as has been shown, instead of the arch and gable, the column and entablature everywhere recur under different forms. The minor domes which flank the great dome of the cathedral of Florence enhance and reinforce the latter, and prepare the eye for a climax which would otherwise be too abrupt. The central pavilion of the Château Maintenon, with its two turrets, echoes the entire façade with its two towers. Like the overture to an opera, it introduces themes which find a more extended development elsewhere (Illustration 26).

[Illustration 25]

[Illustration 26]

[Illustration 27]

This law of Consonance is operative in architecture more obscurely in the form of recurring numerical ratios, identical geometrical determining figures, parallel diagonals and the like, which will be discussed in a subsequent essay. It has also to do with style and scale, the adherence to substantially one method of construction and manner of ornament, just as in music the key, or chosen series of notes, may not be departed from except through proper modulations, or in a specific manner.

Thus it is seen that in a work of art, as in a piece of tapestry, the same thread runs through the web, but goes to make up different figures. The idea is deeply theosophic: one life, many manifestations; hence, inevitably, echoes, resemblances—Consonance.

DIVERSITY IN MONOTONY

Another principle of natural beauty, closely allied to the foregoing, its complement as it were, is that of Diversity in Monotony—not identity, but difference. It shows itself for the most part as a perceptible and piquant variation between individual units belonging to the same class, type, or species.

No two trees put forth their branches in just the same manner, and no two leaves from the same tree exactly correspond; no two persons look alike, though they have similiar members and features; even the markings on the skin of the thumb are different in every human hand. Browning says,

  "As like as a hand to another hand!
  Whoever said that foolish thing,
  Could not have studied to understand—"

Now every principle of natural beauty is but the presentment of some occult law, some theosophical truth; and this law of Diversity in Monotony is the presentment of the truth that identity does not exclude difference. The law is binding, yet the will is free: all men are brothers united by the ties of brotherhood, yet each is unique, a free agent, and never so free as when most bound by the Good Law. This truth nature beautifully proclaims, and art also. In architecture it is admirably exemplified in the metopes of the Parthenon frieze: seen at a distance these must have presented a scarcely distinguishable texture of sunlit marble and cool shadow, yet in reality each is a separate work of art. So with the capitals of the columns of the wonderful sea-arcade of the Venetian Ducal palace: alike in general contour they differ widely in detail, and unfold a Bible story. In Gothic cathedrals, in Romanesque monastery cloisters, a teeming variety of invention is hidden beneath apparent uniformity. The gargoyles of Notre Dame make similiar silhouettes against the sky, but seen near at hand what a menagerie of monsters! The same spirit of controlled individuality, of liberty subservient to the law of all, is exemplified in the bases of the columns of the temple of Apollo near Miletus—each one a separate masterpiece of various ornamentation adorning an established architectural form (Illustration 28).

[Illustration 28]

[Illustration 29]

The builders of the early Italian churches, instinctively obeying this law of Diversity in Monotony, varied the size of the arches in the same arcade (Illustration 29), and that this was an effect of art and not of accident or carelessness Ruskin long ago discovered, and the Brooklyn Institute surveys have amply confirmed his view. Although by these means the builders of that day produced effects of deceptive perspective, of subtle concord and contrast, their sheer hatred of monotony and meaningless repetition may have led them to diversify their arcades in the manner described, for a rigidly equal and regular division lacks interest and vitality.

BALANCE

If one were to establish an axial plane vertically through the center of a tree, in most cases it would be found that the masses of foliage, however irregularly shaped on either side of such an axis, just about balanced each other. Similarly, in all our bodily movements, for every change of equilibrium there occurs an opposition and adjustment of members of such a nature that an axial plane through the center of gravity would divide the body into two substantially equal masses, as in the case of the tree. This physical plane law of Balance shows itself for the most part on the human plane as the law of Compensation, whereby, to the vision of the occultist, all accounts are "squared," so to speak. It is in effect the law of Justice, aptly symbolized by the scales.

The law of Balance finds abundant illustration in art: in music by the opposition, the answering, of one phrase by another of the same elements and the same length, but involving a different sequence of intervals; in painting by the disposition of masses in such a way that they about equalize one another, so that there is no sense of "strain" in the composition.

In architecture the common and obvious recognition of the law of Balance is in the symmetrical disposition of the elements, whether of plan or of elevation, on either side of axial lines. A far more subtle and vital illustration of the law occurs when the opposed elements do not exactly match, but differ from each other, as in the case of the two towers of Amiens, for example. This sort of balance may be said to be characteristic of Gothic, as symmetry is characteristic of Classic, architecture.

RHYTHMIC CHANGE

There is in nature a universal tendency toward refinement and compactness of form in space, or contrariwise, toward increment and diffusion; and this manifests itself in time as acceleration or